


It Wasn't Built in a Day

by seaglassgirl



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Leia, BAMF Leia Organa, College AU, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Multi, bodhi and jyn are best friends, jyn is a genius, jyn is angsty, leia is sassy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9285278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaglassgirl/pseuds/seaglassgirl
Summary: It wasn't perfect, but nothing ever is.Jyn wanted to have nothing to do with her father who shipped her off to boarding school after her mother's death, but at eighteen, with no options left, she found herself given a second chance to attend the university her father teaches at.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's official: I'm complete and utter rebel captain trash. The entire movie, I kept out this horrible hope that Cassian and Jyn would make it off Scarif and have a beautiful family and live a happy normal life and then... BAM! The abundance of rebelcaptain fics and the spotify playlists are the only thing getting me through my obsession. Please read and tell me what you think :) sorry for any errors.

Jyn looked down at the half empty suitcase and breathed a sigh of frustration.

The tiny dorm room that she was to share with some girl for the next year was small and claustrophobic with well worn furniture provided by the university. The brunette groaned as she realized her dresser drawers were almost full and she still had another suitcase full of clothes to try and fit into the dorm room somewhere.

“If you folded your clothes, they would all fit.” Her father chided in a relaxed tone as he put up a shower curtain in her dorm room’s small bathroom. Galen Erso, a tall man with greying hair and hallow cheeks, was right, and while Jyn knew that her father was right, she decided that she would rather throw her clothes away than do as he said. Instead, she didn't respond to his comment and continued to shove the rest of her unfolded clothes in the small drawers.

Jyn had already decided that she hated this dorm and school.

The dorm itself, built over one hundred years ago, was decaying with creaky floors, squeaky doors and the prominent smell of mold throughout her floor. Her hallway was all colors and sparkles when Jyn had walked in this morning, courtesy of her peppy RA, and streamers of all colors hung from the walls while every door had construction paper stars with each room’s inhabitant listed on them.

Her father _insisted_ on helping her move in today, another reason her patience had already run thin. Coruscant University, where she would attend for the next four years, was where her father taught and just so happened to be the head of the electrical engineering department, hence the only reason Jyn was admitted to the university. She wanted to scream every time she thought about the fact that her father, who was absent for most of her adolescence, would be just a few buildings away for the next four years.

"Do you know when Rae and her parents will be getting in?" Galen asked from the bathroom after a period of silence. Jyn’s future roommate, a girl by the name of Rae, contacted her over the summer and the two coordinated bathroom supplies but Jyn and the girl remain almost complete strangers.

"No, father, I don't know," Jyn's green eyes flashed to look up at her dad who was still struggling to put up the shower curtain. She wanted to laugh because her father, a revered genius to many, couldn't figure out how to put a shower curtain up.

Once upon a time, when Jyn was a little girl who wore her hair in braids, she would follow her father around the house with a bright smile and her father would call her ‘stardust’ while her mother made their dinner. Their laughter would ring out like bells as they sat around the table. After dinner her father would tuck her into bed and tell her stories of mystical lands and space ships that traveled to distant planets.

Today, she just wants her father to leave her alone and let her be on her own.

“Good morning,” a new voice, deep with a heavy accent, made her freeze as she attempted to stuff more clothes into a drawer, “I just wanted to check in with you today. I’m Cassian, this dorm’s head Resident Assistant.” Jyn turned around to come face to face with the sheepish smile of a boy a few years older than her. The RA, Cassian, had silky, jet-black hair and light but tanned skin that illustrated his Hispanic heritage. What stuck out to Jyn the most, however, was the sharpness of his features: the piercing eyes, the fineness of his jaw, and his thin lips that he had arranged in a polite smile. When his dark brown eyes met her own, she resisted the urge to look down because of the intensity of his gaze. The smallest bit of stubble dotted his cheeks and Jyn felt her face warm up the longer she looked at him. She wanted to slap herself for blushing, but instead found her body moving on it's own.

“Jyn,” She greeted taking the hand he stretched out. His hands were calloused but smooth, she hoped he wouldn't notice how sweaty her hands were or that her hair was falling out of the messy bun she had tied it in that morning. 

“I just wanted to see if everything was going well today, you’re a freshman?” He asked, giving her another sweet smile as they pulled back their hands and she nodded in response. The green-eyed girl decided in that moment that Cassian was unquestionably good looking; he was much taller than her and his lean body looked comfortable in the khaki shorts and and university t-shirt, “What’s your major?”

“Electrical engineering, and you? I’m assuming you’re not a first year….”

“Ah no this will be my third year,” he said with a light laugh, “Electrical Engineering? Wow that’s impressive, I’m studying political science.” She raised her eyebrows at his declaration.

“Also very impressive,” she responded with a smile.

"Are you from around here?" 

"No, well kind of," she answered frowning, "My dad lives here but I've been in boarding school since elementary school, so while this is technically home, I haven't really lived here. Are you from around here?"

"My family lives in Fest," he supplied.

"That's pretty far south, yeah?"

"It's about a seven hour drive," he answered with a laugh, "It's much warmer there, and my family lives right by the beach so being here the first year I had to adjust a lot."

"You live by the beach?" Jyn asked astonishment evident in her tone.

"Yeah, about a five minute walk to the shore from my house," he answered with a shrug, "Have you never been to the beach?"

"Never," Jyn responded with a shake of her head, "I've always wanted to go, but just never have..."

“Jyn can you hand me- oh Cassian!” Jyn jumped as her father poked his head out of the bathroom. The RA, Cassian, tore his eyes away from hers and his smile grew wider as he stepped forward to shake her father’s hand. Jyn stopped herself from rolling her eyes as her father stepped out of the bathroom.

“Doctor Galen, what are you doing here?” Cassian asked while looking from Jyn to her father.

“This is my daughter Jyn,” Galen announced motioning for Jyn to greet the boy, “I’ve told you about her right? She’s starting her first year here! This is Cassian; he’s on the club soccer team I coach here. He’s actually the team captain….” Jyn gave a tight smile and then promptly began to unpack again while the two boys talked. Jyn felt her blood boil as the boy who, only minutes ago, had seemed so nice and like such a fresh start turned out to be just another one of her father’s followers.

She felt like she was stuck here: at the college her father taught at and under his watchful eye everyday. To her, this coincidence only proved that she was going to be under constant supervision the next four years. She couldn’t afford to make another mistake here because one mistake meant the second chance she was being given would be ripped away. The green-eyed girl knew that second chances didn't come with do-overs.

“Jyn,” Galen called, pulling the brunette out of her inner monologue, “Exchange numbers with Cassian. He can help you navigate throughout campus on the first day and I’m sure that he can answer any questions you have.” Dutifully, she reached in her pocket and handed the Hispanic boy her cell phone while he mirrored her actions. Jyn thought about giving him a fake number, but for some unexplainable reason, ended up putting in her real phone number.

That night at dinner when her father told her to become friends with Cassian, Jyn nodded tightly and forced a smile meanwhile swearing to herself that she would not become friends with Cassian.

xx

Jyn’s roommate turned out to be ver high-maintenence. While Jyn enjoyed math, her roommate was an art major who loved to blast music all the time. The two girls didn't do much together mostly due to Jyn's mounds of homework every night, but they tolerated each other. Rae Shura was nice, friendly, and very beautiful with umber skin and chestnut hair. When Jyn did see her on campus, Rae was always surrounded by a crowd of people. Rae also was milking every ounce of freedom that living in the dorms awarded her and would throw parties in their shared dorm room at least once a week. Jyn really didn't mind the parties, but she was closely monitored by her father and really couldn't afford to get into any trouble so instead of studying in her dorm, Jyn spent most of her nights in the library. The first few weeks she spent in the library alone until her eyelids drooped and the numbers on her pages blurred together. When this happened, she would drag herself back to her dorm to get a few hours of sleep before her roommate would come crashing in at four in the morning.

Sometimes, when she would come in late from the library, she saw Cassian in the common room, working on homework or chatting with a resident  and sometimes she would give him a polite smile but there was never any conversation. Jyn preferred to not associate with any of her father’s favorite students even if Cassian had some weird sort of magnetism surrounding him. It was weird, she knew, but she always seemed to run into Cassian on campus. It was the little things, like they would be next to each other in line at the coffee shop, or they would pass by each other on the staircase in the administration building, but it happened so much that it couldn't be some coincidence.

She found herself more comfortable around the boy as the weeks wore on, despite her ridiculous efforts to keep away from him, Cassian just seemed to show up the same places as her.

It wasn’t until the fourth week of school when Jyn met Bodhi Rook. The two students had been paired to do an in-class assignment in their physics class and at first Jyn had wanted to strangle the nervous wreck of a boy. His calloused hands had shook when they had attempted to construct their assignment and his voice quivered whenever he spoke, but by the end of the class period they were making sarcastic comments to each other under their breath.

Bodhi Rook was a sweet boy with big dark brown eyes, long black hair that got into his eyes if he didn’t pull it back and golden dark skin. His parents had immigrated to the United States from India before he was born but still kept tradition alive in their family and expected nothing less than greatness from their oldest son. This attitude had resulted in a nervousness that could be paralyzing for the poor boy. Even though they were vastly different, Jyn liked him. She could tell under the anxiety that Bodhi was much smarter than most of the students on campus and he had the same dry sense of humor she possessed.

When Bodhi found out about Jyn’s dad, he didn’t get wide-eyed and star struck (like almost all her professors had done the first week of class), instead he laughed and made some joke about it.

For that, Jyn was thankful.

It wasn't until the end of October until Jyn met Leia.

The two girls sat next to each other in their university required psychology course. When Jyn first met Leia, she almost laughed at the girl's ridiculous hairstyle, two buns on the sides of her head but  Jyn held her tongue and held back her comment that Leia's hair reminded Jyn of donuts. However weird her hairstyles could be, Leia was beautiful in a regal way: light, pale skin, high cheekbones and big, chocolate brown eyes.

"He's late again," Leia had mumbled impatiently, before setting her phone down and turning to Jyn, "I just don't understand why we are expected to come to class on time, in fact we can get locked out of the elcture hall if we're late, but professors can show up ten minutes late to their own class and it's like 'who cares!' Like, how is that fair? He's been at least ten minutes late five times in the past month and yet we're still expected to show up on time?"

"It's pretty shitty," Jyn acknowledged with a shrug. Leia smiled at Jyn's words before she extended her hand out.

"I'm Leia, nice to meet you."

"Jyn, likewise."

"I'm studying political science," The brown-eyed girl informed with a grin, "As you could probably tell, I am also very into debate."

"It all makes sense now," Jyn said with a laugh, "But political science? Thats interesting, what do you want to do?" As the words left her mouth, Jyn cringed. It was the question that every person asked and Jyn herself found that she could never give a straight answer. She was studying electrical engineering, like her father, but was that what she wanted to spend the _rest of her life_ doing?

"I'm going to go to graduate school, get elected as a senator and change this country from the inside." Leia stated with such ferocity that Jyn froze.

"What do you want to change?"

"Everything," Leia carried on, "Equality Between Men and Women, protecting forests, rivers, and oceans, the action taken on climate change, political freedoms, an honest and responsive government, a good education system... God I could go on a rant right now... but I won't bore you with politics, yet! What are you majoring in?" Leia had passion for what she was studying, a quality that Jyn found to be admirable.

"Electrical engineering," Jyn stated with wide eyes, still recovering from all the information that Leia had packed into her response. 

"That's amazing, I never really got math like my brother... maybe you know him? He's a first year and he's also studying electrical engineering... Luke Skywalker?" Jyn laughed and she remembered Luke. Leia's brother had sandy blonde hair that fell in his eyes, pale skin, bright blue eyes and a heart of gold. She had him in one of her classes but she had never talked to him.

"My best friend, Bodhi-"

"Oh my god! Bodhi Rook!"

"Yes! He said that Luke and him went to high school together?"

"We all went together," Leia explained,"Luke and Bodhi have been best friends since they were like twelve or something... anyway, I can't believe you know him! He's so smart, it's ridiculous! He would always help me with my homework in high school."

"That's so weird, what a small world!" Jyn supplied, with a laugh.

"Where are you from?" Leia asked with curiosity.

"Kind of from around here..." Jyn explained, "My dad lives in town, but I went to boarding school from elementary to high school so I really don't know many people here."

"That's so cool! I've always heard these stories about boarding school and how fabulous it is and how all the student are super wild and rich! What about summers? You didn't come back here?" Leia asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Nope," Jyn replied after laughing at the girl's reaction, "My dad sent me to math camp every summer, it was less horrible than it sounds I promise." Jyn let a genuine laugh fall through her lips as Leia's mouth hit the floor.

"No," Leia argued, "There is no way that math camp wasn't absolutely horrible." 

"It's really not that bad! I love math-"

"No, that's not an acceptable answer," Leia argued, "Does that mean you never learned how to ride a bike? Or have you not ever gone to the beach?

"No and no," Jyn answered truthfully before shrugging her shoulders, "I never had either opportunity, but I'm not totally incompetent, I love to go skiing!"

"Me too! Have you ever been to Hoth during January?"

"No, is it beautiful?"

"Absolutely gorgeous," Leia answered with reverence, "We are going, for sure."

"Sounds better than sitting in the library and doing homework like I usually do on the weekend." Leia gasped as Jyn confessed her usual weekend plans.

"Okay it's decided, Jyn Erso you are my new best friend." Leia declared as their professor walked into the classroom.

xx

Jyn fell asleep at the library one night.

Bodhi sat across from her with his headphones in and classical deafening him while Jyn closed her eyes and fell asleep with her face in the middle of her calculus book. It wasn't the most comfortable sleeping position, but it also wasn't the worst way to sleep. The library was quiet for the most part, and most students had already left for the night.

Bodhi, she had come to realize, went to sleep late and woke up early in the morning, often only getting a few hours of sleep a night which Jyn had reprimanded him for on multiple occasions. He refused to sleep in, however, claiming that eighteen years of living with strict parents had forced him to always get up early.

It was well past three in the morning when Bodhi shook her awake and helped her gather her things. Jyn and Bodhi trudged together across campus, the streetlights offering minimal light to the two exhausted students. Finals were a month away and the fall air found Jyn pulling on the sleeve of her jumper to warm up her hands while Bodhi walked with his arms crossed.

“I need to give you back your extra calculator,” Jyn reminded her companion as her dorm came into view, “just come up with me, okay?” Bodhi nodded looking like he was about to freeze.

When she saw him, she resisted the urge to turn around and walk the other direction.

“Good evening,” Cassian greeted, meeting Jyn’s eyes with his own bright and clear eyes, as both Bodhi and Jyn walked up to the entrance of her dorm. The Hispanic boy looked as if he was wide awake compared to the two engineering students who looked embarrassingly similar to zombies. Bodhi glanced questioningly at Cassian and then towards Jyn, but Jyn avoided his gaze and instead offered Cassian a small smile.

“You’re on duty tonight?” she asked nonchalantly, pretending to not be rubbing drool off of her chin.

“Yeah, I traded with one of the other RA’s since I have a test later this week,” Cassian explained as he opened the door for the two students, a small smile on his lips.

“Oh,” Jyn mentioned, “well good luck.” Cassian finally broke their eye contact and turned to Bodhi offering him a polite smile.

“I’m Cassian,” he introduced, his accent thick, “I’m one of this dorm’s RA’s.”

“Bodhi,” the darker-skinned boy replied with a polite smile, “I’m one of Jyn’s classmates, nice to meet you.”

“Good to meet you,” Cassian responded before looking back at Jyn, "How's your dad? He was sick earlier this week and had to skip practice." Jyn blinked, trying to remember her father mentioning his sickness.

"I don't really know," she responded with a shrug.

"Ah," Cassian supplied, "I guess you guys don't really see each other that often." Jyn avoided his eyes and resisted the urge to tell him that they saw each other weekly so _she would know_ if he was really sick but instead she kept quiet. She wondered how well Cassian knew her dad, _actually_ knew him. Her dad had a lot of friends and co-workers that he often invited over to the house during holidays, but to Jyn, the man who was her father was still somewhat of an enigma. "Do you have a test this week?" Cassian asked and Jyn found herself looking into his eyes again.

"Um yeah another physics exam," she answered with a grimace, "It's tomorrow actually."

"How do you feel about it?"

"Okay I guess, I mean I fell asleep while studying so..." Cassian smirked before chuckling.

"Well good luck, I'm sure you'll do great. We should study together sometime!"

"Yeah I would love to, see you around!” Jyn gave Cassian a small smile before quickly turning around to the elevators while Bodhi trailed behind her, “I can feel you smirking Bodhi,” Jyn grumbled as the elevator doors closed. Bodhi snickered as he pressed the button for her floor.

“Me? Smirking? I don’t know what you’re talking about unless you’re talking about the RA that you _definitely_ have a crush on.”

“Shut up Bodhi, I don’t have a crush on him,” Jyn denied, her face warming.

“You definitely do,” Bodhi countered, “You have been blushing for the last five minutes and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you act so polite or talk so quietly… Jyn Erso has a shy side! Who knew? And with her dorm’s RA, how _scandalous_! I bet you wish I hadn’t come up with you. Do you spend nights with him when he’s on duty? Is it romantic to roam the campus at night? And that accent, I’ve heard girls go crazy over foreign men but to think that you are just like all the other girls out there….” 

Jyn groaned.

xx

Thursday dinners were a new tradition her father started when she moved back to attend the same college her dad was a professor at. Correction: Thursday dinners started when her father pulled some strings to get his slacker of a daughter into the only college that would take her after she was in a car crash and was arrested for public intoxication. She thought that being in the _same_ city, on the _same_ campus was punishment enough, but her father used their weekly dinners as a way to make sure she wasn't failing or spiraling out of control again.

“Your physics test?” he asked after they were served their entrée. The restaurant he had picked for this week was a small, family owned Italian place with Christmas lights strung up along the walls piano music constantly playing. 

“I got a ninety, but the professor might give some points back because of a typo,” Jyn responded before taking a bite of pasta. 

“A minus, not great but it will do,” her father answered. Their dinners were usually quiet affairs with polite conversation that made Jyn want to pull out her hair. She resisted the urge to throw the plate of pasta at her father’s face and scream at him because _any_ reaction would be better than the mask of politically correctness that he seemed to wear everywhere.

“How’s everything in your classes?” After asking, Jyn took a sip of water and kept her eyes on the plate of food in front of her.

“They’re fine,” Galen acknowledged before a dull silence stretched across the father and daughter as they continued to eat dinner. The piano melody continued on, almost drowning out the awkwardness Jyn felt.

“Its getting cold,” she began again. Jyn had long ago placed talking about the weather as the safest conversation topic.

“It’s almost winter break, I wouldn’t be surprised if it froze this week,” Galen Erso replied with a thoughtful nod, “Warm weather won’t be back until March or April, I will stop by the house on the way home and you can grab your electric blanket.” Galen’s cheeks had become hollower Jyn thought as she looked up to meet his gaze. Suddenly, the man in front of her seemed so weak compared to the man she knew when she was younger.

In that moment, she thought about asking him if he was eating regularly or if he kept forgetting like she knew he often did, but instead she said: “My electric blanket broke last winter,” Jyn answered, her green eyes fixed on his face.

“We can go get one,” Galen conceded.

“Where?”

“They sell them at Target, right?”

“I think so, there’s one by my campus.”

“We’ll go straight after dinner.”

“They might not be open late.”

“If they are not open, I have on in my office you can borrow.”

“You’ve been sleeping in your office.” Jyn stated. As her statement perforates her father’s ears and she watched as his movements faltered.

“Sometimes, when it’s too late, I might sleep there for a few hours…” Frustration overtook the girl sitting across the table as Galen’s confession sat between them.

“Father, you can’t do that. You need sleep, a lot of sleep. You’re overworking yourself again and-”

“I know Jyn, thank you for caring for me. I’ll try to not spend as many nights in the office.” Galen Erso’s eyes crinkled as he gave his only daughter a warm smile. The two lapse into silence as they continue to eat their food, the silence is broken, once again, when her father spoke, “So Cassian, do you remember him?”

“My RA?” Jyn asked, snapping her head up to meet her father’s eyes.

“Yes,” Galen supplied, “He’s a nice boy and so good at soccer it’s a wonder he didn’t try out for the school’s team… and anyway, you should get to know him better. He says you stay late at the library a lot. You know that the campus is safe but not that safe you know. A young girl like you should be more careful especially at night. Maybe even ask Cassian to study with you. He’s quite an exceptional student…” Jyn nodded, forcing a smile as she stabbed her fork into a meatball and her temper flared.

xx

It was a Friday night and Bodhi, Jyn and a few of their classmates had decided to get drunk in Bodhi’s dorm before the beginning of finals. The group was small, but loud: Stordan, Pao, Jav, Miguel and Miguel’s girlfriend, Natasha. The seven of them knew that finals would be devastating and draining, so instead of getting ahead on studying, they sat in a circle playing king’s cup and mixed cheap vodka with Hawaiian Punch.

By two in the morning, everyone was plastered, including Jyn. The game had ended over an hour before and now the group had split into three small groups: Pao, Jav and Stordan had begun to talk about particle accelerators, Miguel and Natasha were whispering to each other with smirks on their faces and Jyn and Bodhi were watching some Netflix show on the sofa.

“You never talk about your dad.” Bodhi stated as the two sat on the couch.The conversation was inevitable and Jyn knew that, but when Bodhi did ask about her dad it was at such a random time and place that Jyn was caught off guard. Jyn’s eyes went wide with surprise and she felt her heart begin to beat faster. If Bodhi saw her discomfort he didn't comment on it and instead turned his head to look back at the television. The dreary wintery weather and the closeness of finals already had Jyn feeling drained but this conversation made her want to just go to sleep.

“What’s to say?” She shrugged following his line of vision to the movie. A chorus of laughs from the group talking about particle accelerators broke through their conversation before Bodhi spoke again.

“He’s famous,” Bodhi said, turning his head to look back at her, “He’s internationally known. He’s written books that have been on the bestseller lists, he was awarded a field’s medal at the age of twenty-five, he’s worked with FBI and top weapons specialists-“

“You seem to know a lot about him.” Jyn interrupted as she ripped her eyes away from the television to meet his questioning gaze. Her expression was hard and sour and her green eyes had darkened into the color of moss. Bodhi caught the way her jaw clenched and a part of him pleaded to let this conversation go but the other part of him, the part that considered Jyn his best friend, knew that this conversation needed to happen.

“Everyone knows a lot about him Jyn,” he explained with a soft voice, “It’s impossible to not know about him especially when we are attending Coruscant University, the university he teaches at.”

Jyn swallowed the rage that bubbled in her throat and reminded herself that this is the sweet Bodhi and he doesn’t know that he’s in dangerous territory.

(He doesn’t know about the typed letters every holiday. He doesn’t know about the polite smiles and the hallow words. He doesn’t know about the SAT Books that arrived in the mail her sophomore year of high school with a brochure for Coruscant University tucked into the pages. He wasn’t there when her father showed up at her school her junior year, seated in the principals office not acknowledging the fact that he hadn’t seen his daughter in over a year. He wasn't there when the paramedics found her, blood staining her hands and ribs broken, as she sat in the passenger seat of a little red BMW with a shattered windshield. He wasn't there when she woke up in a hospital room with no one beside her.)

“He’s pretty smart, yeah,” she agreed coldly.

“Jyn… you’re pretty smart too-“

"No, I'm not. I'm actually pretty dumb and reckless-"

"What are you-" Bodhi doesn’t know about the chasm of distance that is always present or the hidden resentment or the little girl that is still trapped inside of her skull asking where her parents are.

"I can't talk about this right now." Silence overtook the two teenagers as Jyn's words cut through Bodhi's question.

“I’m guessing you two don’t get along,” Bodhi finally said. Jyn shrugged, taking a sip from her cup.

“I can’t say much about someone I don’t really know.”

"Jyn..." Jyn felt the horrible feeling of regret course through her veins as Bodhi looked at her. She didn't want to hurt the boy, but she couldn't talk about things like this with him now. She knew that if she started talking, it would be like a floodgate and the words would start to spill out of her lips. Jyn closed her eyes and tried to keep the little girl in her head from taking over.

"Time for me to go home!” She announced a little too loudly as she stood up. Bodhi looked at her then, the smile plastered on her face and her cheeks red and flushed, and decided that this fight wasn't worth it tonight. Miguel and Natasha stood up too and the rest of the boys waved goodbye.

The walk across campus was quiet and even though it was only a month until finals, the temperature was warmer than it had been the past few days, but a coldness covered Jyn as she walked along the path. She was still buzzed from the drinking games earlier that night, but the alcohol did little against the feeling of regret that flowed through her veins. The green-eyed girl found that she could not forget the look her best friend had given her when she had cut him off.

Bodhi Rook was such a sweet boy and Jyn hadn't meant to push him away like she had, but how could she answer his questions? She didn't know how he would react to everything, much less how she would react if she told anyone how she really felt. She was almost nineteen, but when people asked her questions like Bodhi had earlier, she found that she still felt like a lost little girl. Jyn had realized that she didn't really know where her story began and therefor, if she tried to explain it to someone, she wouldn't be able to tell it fully.

When she swiped her keycard and entered the brightly lit dorm, she was not surprised to see that no one was in the common room. Making her way to the elevators, lost in her own thoughts, she didn't hear as the dorm doors opened behind her. It was only after she pressed the button to the elevator that she finally heard the commotion behind her.

The jet black hair and the lean build of Cassian came into view, however, the bright red hair of a girl tugging his hand along made Jyn's green eyes snap back into focus. He was dressed nicer than she usually saw him with a navy blue cardigan and dark wash jeans on. She mused to herself the possibility that he had recently gotten a haircut because his hair wasn't spilling into his eyes as he smiled at the stranger of a girl. A small pinch of jealously invaded Jyn as she watched the two newcomers walk down the hall, their hands still clasped together. Jyn could tell by the way Cassian's footsteps faltered ever so slightly that he had been out drinking too.

The girl holding his hand was beautiful: a red-head that was dressed in skin-tight black jeans and a flattering blue blouse. Jyn almost laughed because the girl and Cassian were matching for _God’s sake_. Their cheeks were flushed, much like her own cheeks and it was blatantly obvious that the two upperclassmen were heading to Cassian's dorm to do more than say goodnight.

Jyn suddenly felt sick. 

The brunette girl stood by the elevator wishing that she hadn't let Bodhi convince her to take five shots of tequila. She found her mind running with statements that no she was _not_ jealous that her RA was hooking up with some girl because Jyn had _no_ interest in Cassian and it’s not like Cassian had _any_ interest in her. However, her stomach coiled and she found her green eyes following them in the harsh lighting of the dorm hallway. Her face heated up as she considered that she was wearing leggings, a loose t-shirt and had her hair up in a bun with her face bare of any makeup while this girl looked like she could be on the cover of a magazine. Unconsciously, Jyn brushed a stray hair behind her ear and ducked her head as she strained to listen to their conversation.

"I've always loved the way you can dance..." The foreign voice murmured softly, but loud enough to echo down the hallway. Cassian laughed and Jyn found herself frowning. She didn't want to hear these intimate words between lovers (or _whatever_ the two were). To Jyn, it felt wrong to listen to their conversation while holding a coil of foreign jealousy in her own stomach.

As the elevator dinged, Cassian pulled his attention from the girl at his side to the girl standing in the front of the elevator. Their eyes made contact and Jyn suddenly felt like someone had hit her in the stomach. Cassian's eyes widened in shock while Jyn struggled to keep her own eyes passive. How long had it been since she had kissed a boy? Since before the accident, she was sure, but more strange was the feeling in her abdomen that, like a magnet, kept her eyes looking into his.

The dark brown of his irises pierced into her own moss-colored eyes, but more than that, she felt like, for a split second, he could feel everything she felt at that moment: shame, embarrassment, anger, resentment, and want. She was so angry and hurt, like an abandoned dog on the street constantly searching for the owners that didn't want it. The brunette felt her eyes begin to water before she ripped her gaze away.

As Jyn Erso stepped into the elevator, she repeated to herself that her jealousy was just the alcohol playing tricks on her.


	2. winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! This was edited a few times and I almost doubled it's length but to be honest it didn't flow as well as I wanted it to. I always wanted to say thank you to each and every person that contacted me, or left kudos, or commented, you guys are amazing. I'm going to try to make a lot of edits and get another chapter out soon enough, but honestly I'm so busy so I don't know when exactly that will be. I will try to get it done in the next few weeks :) thanks for reading!

“You are lost.” Jyn looked up from the degree plan in her hands and met the sky-blue eyes of her academic counselor, Chirrit Imwe. Mr. Imwe was blind, a fact that Jyn had only figured out minutes before when she had entered his office. He dressed wildly, with a bright red button up and black dress pants he could have passed for business casual, but the flip flops on his feet, a long necklace made only out of white sea-shells and the yellow and black striped scarf on his neck told a different story. Jyn speculated that he was in his forties, but the short buzz cut and tanned skin confused her. Her eyebrows knitted together as his statement hung in the air around them.  
  
She was here to pick out her classes for the next semester and solidify her degree plan, but from the moment she walked in, she could tell her counselor was a bit more eccentric than she expected. His office was small but packed with various odd trinkets: a rock garden in one corner of the room, a decade-old indie movie poster hung on the wall and a box of legos was next to his desk. The smell of incense had almost overwhelmed her when she had first walked in, but Mr. Imwe had only laughed when she began to cough.  
  
“No, I know where I am, we’re in the math building… do you know where you are Mr. Imwe?” she asked apprehensively.  
  
“Oh, Jyn Erso,” he replied with a light laugh, “I may be blind but even I can see that you are like a leaf in the wind… going wherever the wind blows and never forging a path to call your own.” She felt her lips fall into a frown when he finished his thought. He moved his hands from the keyboard of his computer to the wooden desk in front of his and interlaced his fingers.  
  
“I don’t- I thought I was just here to pick out my degree plan.” He only smiled before turning around and picking out a book from one of the many shelves in the room. (How he picked out the correct book, Jyn had no idea).  
  
“Jyn Erso, I have known you since you were just a little girl, but you have lost your passion.” His statement made anger rush through her veins.  
“With all due respect… You don’t know me and no offense but I really just want to finalize my degree plan and get on my way,“ Her voice was stone and her jaw had clenched unconsciously. She didn’t need to figure out her life with some nut-job.  
  
“You fear so much, but you are also so strong like your mother.” Jyn coughed as she attempted to process his odd behavior, but the little girl inside of her head spoke.  
  
“You knew my mother?” Her voice sounded foreign to her, but Jyn couldn’t help the need that had suddenly surfaced.  
  
“Knew her? We were good friends. I am surprised you don’t remember me. My partner and I were good friends with your parents when you were very young. We would often spend holidays with you all,” Mr. Imwe paused and Jyn let out a deep breaths, letting the words soak into her, “Me and your father are still very good friends, but I am not here to talk about your father. I am here to talk about you and your future.”  
  
“What about my future?” she asked with a newfound curiosity.  
  
“You are smart, very smart,” The blind man started off, “but I don’t need to tell you that you scored within the 99th percentile on your standardized tests in high school because I am sure you know that. I have looked at your grades so far this semester and you are one of the highest scorers in all of your classes, a very impressive feat. However, you do not know what you want to know with that brain of yours.”  
  
As she listened to the man in front of her, Jyn’s eyes were bright, brighter than they had been in years. She was sure that this guy was still a little kooky, but she also had decided that listening to him could be worth it.  
  
“What do my test scores have to do with anything? I study a lot. Anyone can tell you that-“  
  
“No, do not discredit yourself,” He snapped and Jyn sat up straight in surprise, “You came here as a last minute special transfer and no I do not need the details because I already know the story… but as your advisor, I have put my top priority to be you, the student. You knew that you were on thin ice and worked harder than you have ever worked to obtain the good grades and to stay out of trouble, which brings me to your current situation. Had you not had the difficulties you were dealt, would you have chosen to come here?”  
  
“No,” Jyn answered before she could think. She hadn’t put much thought into college or university before the accident, but she had always drawn a big red “X” over Coruscant University. Jyn hadn’t ever taken the time to map out her life like so many of her peers had, instead taking everything day by and day and preferring to live in the moment.  
  
“I read that you applied for a few colleges on the west coast…”  
  
“My good friends were going there,” she supplied quietly before looking at her hands. She remembered the night her little group of high-school friends had almost forced her to fill out the applications.  
  
“I see, so you have always been following the river current?” Jyn stayed silent as his accusation hit her. She nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see.  
  
“I really haven’t ever had a plan, I thought that since I have always been good at math that coming here and doing electrical engineering… I like my classes though. I know that you may think I’m just saying that to appease you, but I really do enjoy things here, more than I thought I would.” He nodded his head as she spoke, and she heard the small clanks as the shells on his necklace bumped together.  
  
“Jyn Erso, I will help you with your degree plan, but next year, when you are in my class, I will expect you to have found your passion.”  
  
“My passion?”  
  
“You may not think that you will ever find it, but I know that it’s there in you. You try to keep it hidden away, like you’ve kept so much of your life, but I can see it. I think that you will find what you love to do soon.”  
  
“So… how will you know I’ve found my passion?”  
  
“Well, by the time you take my class, you will have to have applied for your specialty. Here is a list, you and your father should look over them…”  
  
When Jyn walked out of the room, fifteen minutes later with her degree plan finalized, she was sure that her advisor was the craziest person she had ever met. 

  


xx

  
  


It was the end of the semester and the beginning of a very long Winter Break. Bodhi had left yesterday evening for a family trip to London and had promised to talk to her every other day while Luke and Leia had driven home this morning. Jyn let out a deep sigh as she waited out in the cold for her father to pick her and her bags up.  
  
Jyn wasn’t excited.  
Before her mother died and her father buried himself in his work and sent her off to boarding school halfway across the country, Christmas was spent in their small cottage looking home. A fresh Christmas tree would appear at the start of December and her mom would burn candles that smelled like cranberries. Her father would sing carols to Jyn at night after dinner and her mother would put on Christmas movies. Her mother would pull out dozens of snow globes and if Jyn had been on good behavior, her mother would let her shake them and scatter the white particles throughout the globe. Jyn remembered her parents would steal a sweet kiss under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning Jyn’s grandparents would come to the house to open presents.  
  
After her mother died, holidays were spent with her family friend Saw Guerra, his wife and their five golden retrievers. Saw and his wife lived only a few hours from her northwestern boarding school and he would pick her up the day classes ended. They would always stop at a small dingy diner two hours into the trip back to his house picking up a slice of pie each and listening to talk radio. When they finally arrived at his house, his wife would have cheese and crackers set out and dinner in the oven.  
  
All of Saw’s brothers and sisters would come to the house on Christmas day, brightening up the holidays. There would be music playing in the background and loud voices and laughter filling up the house.  
  
Her dad would send her a gift, usually some money and some perfume or clothes with a typed note. She used to try to call him Christmas morning when she was younger, but quickly stopped when he never picked up the phone.  
  
Jyn knew that this year Christmas was going to be spent with a turkey prepared the day before by her father’s cook and Christmas movies playing on the television in the living room. Her father was going to forget to buy a tree until a week before Christmas and the result was going to be a small, only four-foot tall tree with flimsy branches that couldn’t hold an ornament. Saw and his wife had already called her a week ago to tell her they would not be able to go to her dad's house, and even though a pang of sadness had overwhelmed her, she had forced herself to sound upbeat on the phone.  
  
Her father was already twenty minutes late and the wind was beginning to pick up. She was shivering when Cassian met her eyes from across the street and she found herself cursing her father as the boy gave her a warm smile. Suddenly, the merciless teasing of Bodhi the last month was all Jyn could remember as he began to make his way towards her shivering form.  
  
She had told Leia about Cassian only after Bodhi had spotted the Hispanic boy across campus and practically yelled his name. Instead of discouraging the teasing, Leia had encouraged it, going as far to make couple names. Jyn had only laughed uncomfortably and had wished, for the thousandth time, that they would both just forget about it.  
  
“Hey,” he greeted casually, voice raspy but his accent still prevalent. His puffy jacket with fur lining looked comical on his lean form and Jyn couldn’t help herself from smiling.  
  
“Hey you,” she replied, her cheeks suddenly very warm. Up close, she could tell he was just as tired as she felt. The dark circles under his eyes told her that he too had just finished a very trying week of testing.  
  
“How did finals go?”  
  
“Fine, I don’t get most of my grades until tomorrow morning, but I think I did okay. How about yourself?”  
  
“That’s awesome,” he congratulated, a smile breaking out on his face, “Your dad is always bragging about you and how well you’re doing. It’s pretty funny actually, but I did well. I had to take my LSAT in October and finish all my applications, so this break will be much needed.”  
  
“Your LSAT? I didn’t know you wanted to go to law school,” Jyn trailed off.  
  
“It’s been my dream since I was in elementary school actually,” he answered with an embarrassed smile, “It’s just been something I’ve always wanted to do.”  
“Where did you apply?” she asked, genuinely curious.  
  
“Here,” he answered laughing, “and a few other schools across the country. My top choice is here though, the law school here is one of the best in the country, but it’s also extremely competitive.” He looked down at his shoes as another gust of cold wind hit them.  
  
“I didn’t know that, good luck Cassian, I’m sure you’re going to do awesome,” she told him with a small smile on her face and her eyes bright green. As he looked up to meet her eyes, she felt coldness in her fingers suddenly evaporate into warmth. She was suddenly struck with the feeling that had almost overwhelmed her that night as she waited for the elevator. He had looked up, meeting her eyes with his soft eyes, and suddenly her body had been filled with a foreign sensation.  
  
“Enough about me, are you waiting on your dad to pick you up?” he asked, breaking the silence that had overtaken them.  
  
“Yeah, he was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago, but he’s probably running late as usual.” He laughed as she let out a sigh of annoyance.  
  
“He does seem to run on his own time, doesn’t he?” Cassian agreed.  
  
“I don’t know how his students don’t throw a fit, like honestly, my psychology professor was late almost every day this past semester and my class almost started a riot.”  
  
“Psych? Did you have Bail Organa?” Cassian asked grinning.  
  
“Yes! Did you have him?”  
  
“Freshman year, my best friend and I signed up for his class and he was always late so our class played pranks on him. It was one of the most fun classes I’ve ever taken.” Jyn laughed as she saw the excitement in his eyes grow.  
  
“What kind of pranks?”  
  
“Just dumb stuff,” Cassian stated with a shake of his head, “We would switch seats or put pudding in his chair or one time we got another teacher to pretend to teach. When he showed it, the look on his face was priceless!” Jyn couldn’t help but keep laughing as he continued to reminisce about the pranks his friends would pull their first year here. She had the thought as he brought up another memory; She had never seen Cassian with such a carefree expression painted on his face. When she saw him on campus or in the dorm, he always had a polite smile, but right now, the boyish grin and the brightness of his eyes drew her closer to him.  
  
She decided that she liked the way he looked right now, bundled in a puffy coat and laughing next to her.  
  
“Jyn,” Their conversation was put on pause when her dad’s car pulled up in front of them, “I am so sorry Jyn, I didn’t mean to be this late. A meeting with a colleague ran over and we lost track of time.” Jyn shrugged with a smile and she grabbed her suitcases.  
  
“It’s fine, no big deal.” Cassian moves to grab her other suitcases and she felt her face heat up as he helped her load her bags in the trunk.  
  
“Cassian,” Galen greeted as he stepped out form the parked car, “Good to see you, I trust finals went well?”  
  
“I think so,” he replied politely as he shook the older man’s hand.  
  
“Good to hear! Jyn, did I tell you? Cassian is my TA next semester for one of my seminars.” Cassian grinned towards Jyn, but she avoided his eyes.  
  
“Very exciting,” she supplied before closing the door to the trunk.  
  
“I hope you have a good break Cassian, see you back in January!”  
  
“You too,” he answered before looking back at the green-eyed girl standing a few feet away, “I’ll see you soon, Jyn. Have a happy holidays.” She met his gaze again before answering.  
  
“Same you to.” A small smile graced her lips before she turned to get in the car. 

  


xx

  
  


Jyn moves back into the dorms the first day she can. The weather is still unbearably cold outside, but her dorm is warm and cozy and the brunette finds herself excited to spend the night inside in a big sweater with a good book.  
  
Her roommate rushes in that evening, throwing her suitcases into her closet and updating Jyn about her own winter break. Jyn barely gets a word in before the dark-haired girl turns the conversation to her. Rae wants to go out tonight with some other classmates who also moved back early. Jyn, after a few hours of begging, decides to go to the local bar that somehow will always serve minors just to quiet her overly enthusiastic roommate. Her roommate lets her borrow some clothes shoving Jyn into a black leather skirt, dark red, low cut shirt and over the knee black boots.  
  
Jyn resists the urge to lie and say her stomach is upset when she looks in the mirror.  
  
As soon as Jyn walks into the pregame, she understands why her roommate so desperately wanted her to come. There are a few couples, but the first guy Jyn is introduced to is a boy by the name of Tai with white blonde hair, porcelain skin and bright blue eyes. Jyn knows her roommate is trying to set her up as soon as the two are introduced.  
  
However, Jyn has already gotten dressed and done her hair and makeup and going home would be a waste, so she follows through. He’s sweet, a little too confident for her, but definitely sweet. By the time they arrive at the bar, he’s daring her to keep up with her and buys them shots. She takes them like a champ (if boarding school had taught her nothing else, she knew how to handle her liquor) and soon enough the two are dancing and her ass up against his hips and his hands on her hips. He whispers words into her ear and she shivers. He might be cocky, but he’s handsome and Jyn doesn’t really know where her standards are at the moment.  
  
The music stops as she looks up to see Cassian across the room playing pool with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face. He hasn’t spotted her yet, the bar is dark and big enough for her to remain anonymous, but something inside of her suddenly wants to not be here anymore. She doesn’t want him seeing her dancing with some boy she’s just met. Then again, why does she care?  
  
In her intoxicated state, she decides she is too sober is she cares about what her RA thinks of her and decides she needs another shot.  
  
She grabs Tai’s hand and drags him through the hot bodies of their peers to the crowded bar to order another round of shots. The bartender serves them, overwhelmed and Tai and Jyn clink their glasses together before finishing off another shot.  
  
“You didn’t lie when you said you could hold your liquor,” Tai shouts into her ear, wanting to be heard over the music, but Jyn doesn’t hear him. She stares at the opposite end of the bar where a boy with jet black hair, olive skin and a five o’clock shadow is ordering another round of beers. She tells herself she’s going to look away but Cassian catches her eyes and suddenly is offering her a small smirk.  
  
Tai follows her gaze and once seeing Cassian, grabs her hand and interlaces their fingers. The movement makes Jyn break eye contact with Cassian and look up into the bright blue eyes of the boy beside her. He squeezes her hand and attempts to tug her through the throng of bodies but her feet feel like lead and Cassian is here and the room is so hot. Sweat runs down her back as Tai looks at her again. Then suddenly Cassian is there next to her and Tai looks like he’s going to burst.  
  
“Jyn!” Cassian exclaims over the music. Jyn smiles at him, a bright and luminous smile that overtakes her face and Tai releases her hand, “Its so good to see you! Are you moved back in?” Jyn nods her head in excitement not noticing when Tai disappears in the crowd of people.  
  
“My roommate invited me out tonight to celebrate,” Jyn shouts over the crowd with a smirk as Cassian looks back to the bar.  
  
“Do you play pool?” He asks with a smirk as he grabs the beers he ordered. She nods as he hands her a beer and puts a hand on the small of her back as he leads her to the pool table he was at before in a dimly lit corner of the bar. He introduces her as his friend (she wants to argue because since when were they friends?) and they start a new game along with his other friends.  
  
An hour later, she’s slightly more sober when he offers her to ride in the uber back to campus. She accepts after looking around and finding that Rae and Tai are already gone. Cassian, Jyn and the four other boys that came with Cassian pile into a minivan with music blasting from the tiny speakers when the bar closes. Jyn and Cassian sit in the back, Jyn by the window, Cassian in the middle and Farsin (one of Cassian’s good friends) on the other side. Cassian is so close to Jyn, their thighs touching and shoulder bumping and Jyn feels almost breathless when he finds her hand in the darkness and interlaces their fingers.  
  
“You’re Jyn Erso?” Yosh, a boy with pale skin light brown eyes and messy black hair that was Cassian’s roommate freshman year (as Jyn was told during their games of pool) asks over the music.  
  
“That’s me,” she answers as Cassian’s hands give hers a slight squeeze.  
  
“You’re Galen Erso’s daughter, right? The Galen Erso?” Yosh asks, flabbergasted. Jyn tenses up as the questions fire themselves into her. She pulls her hand away from Cassian’s and straightens up her posture.  
  
You are your father’s daughter.  
  
“Yeah, that’s me…” she trails off letting the boy continue to talk about her father and how brilliant he is. She pretends to not notice that Cassian is staring at her. She’s used to this but the sting never really fades.  
  
When they get dropped off at the dorm she gives the boys a thankful smile and avoids Cassian’s gaze as she goes to her room alone.

  


 

tbc.


	3. Chapter 3

  
“You never talk about your dad.” Bodhi stated as the two sat on adjacent bar stools in a local coffee shop waiting for their orders. Jyn’s eyes widened and she felt her heart begin to beat faster as the words processed and the silence between them grew. If Bodhi saw her discomfort he didn't comment on it and instead turned his head to look outside. He was wearing an aqua sweater with tribal designs on it in bright colors and Jyn had laughed when she had spotted him across the shop, but now it gave her something to stare at as she contemplated his words. To her, Bodhi was so innocent and optimistic that his sweater was a perfect representation of his personality. However, the dreary wintery weather already had Jyn feeling drained and now that Bodhi brought up her dad, she felt like closing her eyes and going to sleep instead of studying.

“What’s to say?” She shrugged following his line of vision to the window overlooking the street. Cars went by in blurs for a minute she thought of feeling of driving through a long and open road pushing down on the gas petal with the windows open and her hair flying in her face. She tried to pin-down that feeling of freedom while she still had it in her grasp, but the feeling slipped away after a second.

“He’s famous,” Bodhi said, turning his head to look back at her, a bewildered expression present on his tanned face and his eyes wide, “He’s internationally known. He’s written books that have been on the bestseller lists, he was awarded a field’s medal at the age of twenty-five, he’s worked with FBI and top weapons specialists-“

“You seem to know a lot about him, so why are you asking me?” Jyn interrupted as she ripped her eyes away from the window to meet his questioning gaze. Her expression was hard and sour and her eyes had darkened. Bodhi watched the way her jaw clenched and a part of him tried to let this conversation go but the other part of him, the part that considered Jyn his best friend, knew that this conversation needed to happen. He realized, a few weeks ago, that while Jyn knew everything about his family, he knew almost nothing of hers: she skillfully dodged questions about her mysterious family and when she became cornered, like right now, she clammed up into a ball of bitterness.

“Everyone knows a lot about him Jyn,” he explained with a soft voice, “It’s impossible to not know about him especially when we are attending Corusant University, the university he teaches at.” Jyn swallowed the rage that bubbled in her throat because it was Bodhi and he didn't know that he was in dangerous territory.

He didn't know about the typed letters every holiday. He didn't know about the polite smiles and the hallow words. He didn't know about the SAT Books that arrived in the mail her sophomore year of high school with a brochure for Corusant University tucked into the pages. He wasn’t there when her father showed up at her school her junior year, seated in a cushy chair in the principals office not acknowledging the fact that he hadn’t seen his daughter in over a year. Bodhi didn't know why she never bothered to get her driver’s license, or why she was at this university-

Bodhi didn't know about the chasm of distance that was always present or the hidden resentment or the little girl that was still trapped inside of her skull asking where her parents were.

“He’s pretty smart, yeah,” she agreed coldly, not elaborating before a barista interrupted them to drop off their drinks. While Bodhi broke eye contact to pick up their drinks, Jyn looked down at the worn coffee bar. She tried to chase away the regret gnawing at her soul because she _should not have been rude_ to her closest friend, but she didn't want to open her heart up, not right now with winter break only a month behind her and the pain still a dull throb. However, a part of her wanted to open up to Bodhi because of how kind he was and how he didnt ever pry and because he was always so patient with her even when she got like this.

“Jyn… you’re pretty smart too-“

"I guess," she supplied with a shrug, "What do you want to know about him?" She met his eyes now trying to practice the patience Bodhi had shown to her.

“I’m guessing you two don’t get along,” Bodhi finally said after the barista left. Jyn shrugged as she took a sip of her tea.

“I can’t say much about someone I don’t really know.” With those words, Bodhi began to understand a bit more of Jyn Erso. 

xxx

Jyn sat outside the library on a picnic table, her headphones on and a textbook and spiral in front of her. It was the beginning of February and the temperature kept dropping but Jyn found it pleasant enough to sit outside and do some homework before class starts. As a gust of wind rustled her books and pushed some hair into her face, she bit her lip in concentration.

February meant the final part of winter and that much closer to summer, a thought that would bring many students pleasure, but instead brought a churning feeling into her stomach. Her father had already emailed her last week about a summer internship in California. Jyn knew that once again she was going to get shipped off to another part of the country for an extended period of time against her will and the loss of control over her own life was nauseating.

She also desperately needed to get her mind off of Cassian.

Sometimes she studied in a small coffee shop that was walking distance away from the campus. It wasn't too quiet, but the tables were big and there were a bunch of outlets and sometimes it was less crowded than the library. Recently, Cassian had joined her studying. 

He didn't usually bother her (she’s spent too way years using math to tune out the world around her) but sometimes when she would look up to flip the page of her textbook, she would stop and look at him. When he’s researching, he would bite the top of his pen in concentration and hum ever so softly that the first time she heard it, she almost thought her mind was playing tricks on her.

Last week Cassian caught her staring at him. The sun was setting, casting a ethereal glow in the small coffee shop, acoustic music was playing softly in the background and the smell of fresh coffee rooted her to this present like an anchor. His eyes were golden in the light of the setting sun and his skin practically glowed.

“You could take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he teased with a grin and she felt her face flush.

That should have been the end of the conversation, but instead he took out his headphones and their conversation progressed until hours later they were walking back to campus together in the soft glow of streetlights. The air had been cold and stung her red cheeks, but she couldn't stop smiling and she hadn't remembered ever having that feeling of weightlessness in her chest.

Today, however, she was studying alone.

“How’s school going?” Jyn looked up and came face to face with her father. His head was blocking the sun casting shade of her book. Jyn quickly looked at his rumpled clothes, messy hair, and coffee cup and determined that he probably spent the night in his office.

“Fine,” she answered as she took the headphones out of her ears, “Just getting ahead on some homework.” He took her answer as an invitation to take the seat across from her and Jyn resisted the urge to scowl in annoyance.

“That’s very good, what subject?” her father asked as he pulled out a granola bar from his bag.

“Network Analysis,” a quick response, “Exponential Random Graph models.” He nodded in understanding before taking a sip of the black coffee. She then noticed that there was a stain on his wrinkled button up shirt and his wool jumper looked like it needs to be washed too. She wanted to ask him if he slept last night, if he’s been going home and eating enough because every time she sees him he looks smaller, but she held her tongue.

“I was thinking of asking Saw and his wife over for Easter this year,” he started and her eyes never left his form. She waited for the explanation because her father always had a reason, “I know that they miss you a lot and I might have to go to D.C. for a week over the break.”

She doesn’t expect the pang of hurt that sliced through her heart at his confession. She thought that after years of disappointments, she wouldn’t find herself in this position anymore. No matter how hard she tried, the little girl inside of her head keeps screaming to come out.

“Oh,” she replied, her mouth dry and her words hallow. Unconsciously, she dropped her shoulders in defeat.

“It’s not a concrete plan yet, but I just wanted to warn you. I’ll still be there for New Years, but the conference might run over Christmas.” The words became a jumbled mess of sounds in her brain as her father tried to explain his absence for yet another holiday.

A cynical voice in her head reminded her that she was dreading spending Easter with him, but the loneliness tangled itself into her thoughts like a fast growing vine.

“That’s fine,” she said after he finished talking, “I’m sure we will have plenty of time together during the break. Anyway, I have to get to class now. I’ll see you Thursday for dinner.” Jyn found herself surprised with the conviction in her voice. At her words, her father stood up and gave her a small sad smile as she gathered her books and notebooks, stuffing them messily into her backpack. When her father had left, she looked toward the math building and then began to walk back to her dorm.

xxx

As the girls walked through the soccer fields, Leia’s eyes lit up and the brunette almost smacked her forehead in regret.

“Soccer players,” Leia whispered as they walked along the fence of the soccer field. Jyn looked up and immediately regretted it: front and center was Cassian without a shirt on, standing on the sideline talking to her dad, “Isn’t that your dad? And isn’t that Cassian?” Jyn felt her face heat up and she found that she couldn't stop staring at Cassian. He was lean, but who knew he was so muscular? Sure, when they had walked home and he had given her a hug, she had felt the ripples of muscles on his abdomen, but now looking at him without a shirt, Jyn almost couldn’t believe it.

“Shhh,” Jyn snapped with a blush painting her face, “He’ll see us!” Leia’s mouth made an ‘O’ before she looked back to Cassian who was now laughing with another player. 

“It’s just Cassian!” Leia said a little too loudly and Jyn shot her a glare. Leia had recently met another upperclassman, a friend of Cassian's, and since then it had been Leia's mission to meet Cassian.

“Yes! That’s him now keep walking before he sees us!”

“Jyn, you picked out the cutest soccer player on this field to have a fling with. I’m proud of you! Now you guys just need to hang out again and talk about your feelings.” Leia stated with a glint in her eye. Jyn rolled her eyes but suddenly felt like her friend had a diabolical plan.

“Leia, we are not romantically interested in one another and he's like my Dad's TA and I really don’t need to say hi to him here especially when he’s not wearing a shirt. Let’s go.”

“Oh no, you are not doing this! Plus I need to say hi to your dad, I’m sure he remembers me,” Leia stated with determination before turning around and waving at Galen Erso over-dramatically, “Hi Mister Erso! Nice to see you again!” The yelling caused the whole club team to stop and turn their heads toward the two girls on the other side of the fence. Jyn felt like her face might catch on fire when Cassian looked towards her and gave a wide smile.

“Jyn and Leia,” Her father greeted back with a polite smile, “Good to see you! You and Jyn are coming for dinner tonight, right?” Jyn met Cassian’s eyes with apprehension and felt her stomach turn into jelly when he smirked.

“Sure are,” Leia confirmed with a smile and a wave.

“Jyn!” Cassian greeted as he began to jog over to the fence. Jyn forced herself to look somewhere, anywhere other than the shirtless boy in front of her, but failed miserably as soon as they made eye contact.

“Hey,” she greeted with a forced smile when he stopped at the fence, a grin on his face. 

“Hi,” Leia interrupted with a shit-eating grin placed on her face, “I’m Jyn’s best friend Leia, it’s nice to finally meet you!”

“Cassian,” he replied with a grin, not missing a beat, “finally?” He raised his eyebrows and turned to Jyn.

Jyn fought the urge to punch Leia.

“Yes! I’ve heard so much about you! Han told me about a party at his apartment tonight? You're going too?” Leia asked and Cassian laughed.

“Yes, a small party tonight at the apartment,” The boy agreed looking back and forth between the girls, “You both need to be there!”

“Oh we will!” Leia jumped in before Jyn could comprehend what just happened. Cassian laughed again before grinning at Jyn.

Her father’s whistle called Cassian back to the field and Leia waved goodbye before turning to walk away. Jyn gave her own small wave before turning to follow her crazy friend.


End file.
